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The seductions of quantification : measuring human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking / Sally Engle Merry.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Merry, Sally Engle, 1944-2020, author.
- Series:
- Chicago series in law and society
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Women--Violence against--Research--United States--Methodology.
- Women.
- Human trafficking--Research--United States--Methodology.
- Human trafficking.
- Women--Violence against--Data processing.
- Human trafficking--Data processing.
- Quantitative research.
- Social indicators.
- Numerical analysis--Data processing.
- Numerical analysis.
- Women--Violence against.
- Research.
- Methodology.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (viii, 249 pages.)
- Place of Publication:
- Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.
- [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], [2016]
- System Details:
- text file
- Summary:
- We live in a world where seemingly everything can be measured. We rely on indicators to translate social phenomena into simple, quantified terms, which in turn can be used to guide policy. Yet counting things requires finding a way to make them comparable. And in the process of translating the confusion of social life into neat categories, we inevitably strip it of context and meaning-and risk hiding or distorting as much as we reveal. Sally Engle Merry investigates the techniques by which information is gathered and analyzed in the production of global indicators on human rights, gender violence, and sex trafficking. Although numbers convey an aura of objective truth and scientific validity, Merry argues that such measurement systems constitute a form of power, incorporating theories about social change in their design but rarely explicitly acknowledging them. As Merry shows, indicators are indeed seductive in their promise of providing concrete knowledge about how the world works, but they are implemented most successfully when paired with context-rich qualitative accounts. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- A world of quantification
- Indicators as a technology of knowledge
- Measuring violence against women
- Categorizing violence against women: the cultural work of commensuration
- Measuring the unmeasurable: the US Trafficking in Persons Reports
- Knowledge effects and governance effects of the Trafficking in Persons Reports
- Human rights indicators: translating law into policy
- Conclusions.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-242) and index.
- Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, MI Available via World Wide Web.
- Description based on print version record.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Frances Baylinson Rosenbluth Fund.
- Other Format:
- Ebook version :
- ISBN:
- 9780226261317
- 022626131X
- Publisher Number:
- 99986283722
- Access Restriction:
- Restricted for use by site license.
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